


what we do for family

by cywscross



Series: 100 Prompts Challenge [10]
Category: Fast and the Furious Series, Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Don't copy to another site, During Canon, Gen, Murder, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/cywscross
Summary: "We've got a day. More than a day.""We don't even know where we'd go.""You got more than one brother, Hatts, and lucky for us, he happens to be an engineer."Instead of Samoa, Deckard has another solution ready.--Or, the one where the Shaw siblings finally sort their shit out, in-between killing a bunch of people. Obviously.
Relationships: Deckard Shaw & Hattie Shaw, Deckard Shaw & Hattie Shaw & Owen Shaw, Deckard Shaw & Owen Shaw, Hattie Shaw & Owen Shaw
Series: 100 Prompts Challenge [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542082
Comments: 27
Kudos: 191





	what we do for family

**Author's Note:**

> For the [100prompts challenge on DW](https://100prompts.dreamwidth.org/).
> 
> [**Prompt:** 014\. Daybreak](https://cywscross.dreamwidth.org/17140.html)
> 
> Sequel to **[ _what we pay for family_ ]**

For a long moment, Hattie only stares, chewing on her bottom lip the way she always has when she's nervous and doesn't want to show it. Deckard arches a questioning eyebrow.

"…Is his reason for cutting ties with the army anything like yours?" She finally asks.

Deckard considers that for a few seconds. "Yes and no. It's connected to mine." He gives her a flat look. "But even if it's not, we're going. It's Owen, he'll help."

Hattie scowls. "I know that. He set up a dropbox for me years ago, so I could contact him if I ever needed anything, and he included the locations of a few caches of money and supplies too. I just…"

"Never used it," Deckard finishes with a roll of his eyes as he pulls his phone out. "Of course not."

He gets a smack on the shoulder for that. "I used some of the money and supplies after Eteon framed me!" She says defensively, then jerks her chin at Hobbs, who's given up the pretence of not paying attention now that Deckard isn't yelling anymore. "He caught me on my way out."

Hobbs grins a little. "Don't take it to heart. I'm pretty good at what I do."

Deckard sighs at both of them. He _hates_ how friendly they are, but Hattie doesn't know the whole story, might even say that Deckard and Owen had deserved what they got if she did know, and worst of all, Hobbs… Hobbs is surprisingly not terrible… if Deckard ignores their shared past and the man's sheer talent for being irritating just by opening his mouth.

He scowls, shoves that thought aside, and turns away as Owen picks up.

_"Deck?"_

"Owen. I told you about Hattie. She's still in trouble. We've run into a bit of a dead-end and need a pickup and a place to lie low. I know you were on that job of yours but how soon can you get here?"

There's a rumble in the distance. All three of them look up.

_"Five minutes,"_ Owen announces, even as the shadow of an aircraft slowly solidifies behind the clouds. _"What, did you really think I wouldn't be following you?"_

Deckard grins. "Perfect." He sobers. "You'll be pickin' up three, by the way."

_"Yes, I noticed,"_ Owen's voice evens out into that coolly pleasant tone he reserves for people he dislikes but has to remain civil with. _"Needs must. I promise I won't try and leave him behind."_

"Wouldn't blame you if you do; I tried that myself," Deckard mutters, and quirks a smile at the reluctantly amused sound that drags itself out of Owen. "See you in five."

He hangs up and turns back to his sister and Hobbs. "Let's go meet him."

* * *

Owen double-checks that the cloaking device he’d once stolen from one of Cipher’s backers is working, sets the coordinates for one of his safehouses, and switches the plane to auto-pilot before getting up to join the others in the back.

He pauses only briefly at the door, and then he opens it and steps through, weaving his way to the main cabin. His three new passengers are clustered on the left, already helping themselves to the bottles of water and snacks Deckard had no doubt found for them.

His eyes go to Deckard, clocking his injuries, and then move on to Hattie, cataloguing hers for all of two seconds before her gaze snaps up to meet his.

Her shock is evident, welling up behind the wary uncertainty, and a pack of biscuits falls from her hand as she pushes to her feet. “Owen? What happened to your face?”

Ah. It’s funny, how he can almost forget his scars these days. It’s everyone else who can’t.

He smiles, and Hattie’s eyes immediately narrow, because they haven’t seen each other in a decade but they can still read each other fine, and Owen only smiles the way he’s smiling now when he wants to deflect.

“It’s a long story,” He says anyway, perfectly mild without even half a glance at Hobbs. “I fell out of a plane. Amongst other things.”

“ _You_ fell out of a plane?” Hattie echoes, and her incredulity couldn’t be more obvious, which would be flattering under any other circumstances. She skirts around Deckard, hurrying over, hands coming up, and Owen…

He doesn’t quite flinch. But he turns his head to the left - away - without really meaning to, only to abort the motion just as sharply once it registers, and in front of him, Hattie goes still. There’s a frozen moment after that where nobody moves. Behind their sister, Deckard doesn’t get up, but he’s half twisted around, watching them like a hawk.

A breath, two, and it almost seems like Hattie might step back. But she wouldn’t be Hattie if she did, and instead, her expression firms, and she takes that final step to put her close enough to touch.

She reaches for him again, slower but without hesitation, intentions clear, and this time, Owen lets her.

She’s gentle about it, which is sweet but doesn’t actually matter because he still can’t feel much of anything on his left side, and she also doesn’t slap him, which admittedly he half-expected since she boarded his plane. He lets her inspect the scars, tracing them up to where they disappear into his hairline, tugging at the collar of his shirt where the rest are hidden.

She meets his gaze and asks again, voice like cold steel and undisturbed water, like she's actually ready to listen in a way she'd refused to ten years ago, "What happened?"

Owen stares at her, then flicks a look over at Deckard, who shrugs. "I didn't tell her. She overheard Brixton monologuing."

Owen's eyes narrow. Brixton Lore. If Deckard hadn't killed him, Owen would've. Now that it turns out he's still alive… well. Opportunities abound, as they say.

Between them, Hattie scowls, and then grabs his wrist and drags him over to the seats. There's a moment where their steps falter, because Hattie had been sitting beside Deckard with Hobbs across from them, and she's smart enough to connect the sudden tension in his arm to the government agent still watching them like they're some kind of bloody soap opera, but then she huffs, shoves Owen into the seat beside Deckard's, and then sits down beside Hobbs instead.

That's not actually much better, but Owen supposes he has to play nice right now, which probably includes _not_ yanking Hattie away from the git.

"Yes, I had to _overhear_ what happened to Deck," Hattie says pointedly. "But apparently you already knew."

"To be fair, I didn't plan on telling him either," Deckard mutters. "He just wouldn't believe anything the military told him, and threatened to kick up enough of a fuss to get assassins sent after _him_ if I didn't tell him the truth."

Owen smirks unrepentantly and doesn't even care when he receives a near-bruising elbow to the ribs.

Hattie's shoulders hunch, then unhunch, then square, because she has all the pride of a Shaw but not so much that she doesn't know how to face her mistakes head-on. She's always been better at that than Owen. She and Deckard both.

"Alright," Hattie nods, refocusing on Owen. "Alright, so what happened to you? Why did they discharge you?"

Owen's smile twists a little. "I disobeyed a superior officer, which resulted in a botched op."

Hattie glares. "Yes, that's the official story. What's the real one?"

Owen's smile widens. "That _is_ the real one, sister dear. In fact, I disobeyed several superior officers and botched a variety of ops as a resu- _ow_ , _Deckard, let go._ "

Deckard gives the skin on his right wrist a last harsh pinch before releasing him, but the expression on his face is entirely unimpressed. "Quit twisting the truth. If you don't tell her, I will."

Owen scoffs. "That's rich, coming from you."

"And that's another thing," Hattie interjects indignantly. "Deck knows about you too?"

Owen grimaces. He actually hadn't realized Deckard had known, until it had come out a year ago, when it had all come to a head in front of Toretto's house.

Deckard shrugs. "He didn't tell me. I looked into it."

Hattie flushes, kicks Owen in the leg, then kicks Deckard too for equality's sake, because she's always had weird impulses attached to shame. "So tell me now. Spit it out. I'll find out one way or another."

Owen sneers and looks away, attention catching on the film of clouds outside the window, stained gold with the setting sun. Beside him, Deckard heaves a sigh and says for him, "This idiot took offence against every last one of my direct superiors for believing the evidence Eteon mucked up. They made it pretty believable, obviously, but Owen - in all his infinite wisdom - decided he wouldn't stand for it and stayed on just long enough to manipulate several operations in a way that ended up killing every commanding officer who'd had a hand in sending those operatives after me, after I supposedly went rogue."

Owen whips his head back around to snarl at his brother, who only stares back calmly. "They deserved it. You went above and bloody well beyond for them more times than anyone could even keep track of, but the moment some falsified tripe painted you a traitor, they didn't even bother investigating, they just sent people to kill you." He looks at Hattie, who's sitting very still. "And don't tell me you still don't understand - they've done the exact same thing to you now, and you were loyal enough to cut your own family off."

He stands abruptly, done with the conversation, because even after all these years, this particular issue has never been fully resolved for him, and there's not much he hates more than unfinished business. He'd killed the commanders directly responsible for sending a hit squad after his brother, but they hadn't been the only ones accountable for that decision. Even before Eteon had interfered, there had been people who'd looked at how strong Deckard was, how high his kill count had numbered, how terrifyingly good he'd become at the job _they'd given him_ , and they'd been afraid. Eteon had just provided a good excuse. Those operatives would've been sent eventually, and Owen had hated every last one of them for it. They'd never deserved his brother's service. But even Owen Shaw couldn't feasibly tear down the entirety of the British government and its armed forces, so he'd had to settle, and it had left a bitter taste in his mouth ever since.

And let's not even get into Eteon. Even acquiring the God's Eye two years ago hadn't been able to help him track those bastards down.

He turns a frigid smile on Hattie. "My reason for leaving the military was nowhere near as noble a sacrifice as Deckard's. It's far closer to the official version, and you'd do well to-"

He's cut off by a vicious kick to his ankle - _Christ, he's forgotten how testy Hattie can get_ \- that makes even his leg momentarily buckle, and then he's shifting away, swiping out with his own foot to take Hattie's legs out when she makes to stand, and she falls back into her seat with a curse.

"Don't start with me, Hattie," Owen hisses.

Hattie comes right back up swinging, although only metaphorically this time. "Then don't talk to me like I'm not your sister!" She bites out. " _I'll_ decide how to feel about all this, thank you, I don't need you telling me-"

"I thought you already decided that ten years ago," Owen interrupts with just the right amount of mockery to make his sister _steam_. "I'm just informing you that nothing's changed."

For a split second, Hattie looks pissed enough to throw down, and Owen almost wants it. He's never blamed Hattie for her life choices, not enough to hold a grudge, especially when it came to her feelings in regards to him, because no matter how nicely Deckard dressed it up _,_ Owen was - and is - more or less _exactly_ the criminal arsehole Hattie has believed him to be for the past decade. So that's fine. But he's never quite forgiven her for tarring Deckard with the same brush. Even if Deckard hadn't told her, it should've been bloody obvious.

A scuffle might be exactly what they need to vent the worst of their grievances.

But then, Hattie deflates. Owen blinks as she slumps back into her seat and closes her eyes, blowing out a frustrated breath but also visibly simmering down before her temper can hit breaking point. She opens her eyes. "I'm sorry. I should've checked too. I should've called until I'd gotten the truth out of one of you. I should've offered to help when you had to run, the way you and Deckard did the moment I had to. I'm sorry."

Owen stares for a moment longer, jaw aching with how hard he's gritting his teeth, and then he sighs and forces himself to relax before dropping back into his seat, absently flexing his left hand. Honestly, he'd prefer a fight.

"It's not like you were wrong about me," He mutters at last.

Hattie rolls her eyes. "Just take the apology, O. You know how often I give those."

Almost never. Owen sighs again.

He's never blamed her for her life choices. She's his sister, and they've been able to go from screaming murder at each other to piling on the sofa together to trying to stab each other with paper clips to sharing an ice-cream, all in the space of an hour, since they were kids. He supposes it's only a matter of course that she would be forgiven just as easily, even after a decade of silence.

He doesn't say anything in the end. But he knocks his knee against hers and watches her quirk that beaming curl of a smile in response, one he hasn't seen in ten years, and her knee knocks back against his, perfectly familiar.

Of course, the moment's ruined when Deckard enquires in long-suffering tones, "Are you two children finished?"

And the bloody government hack has the gall to _laugh_.

God, why are they always hashing out their family issues in front of Toretto's people?

"Fuck off, Deck," Owen snaps, and isn't nearly as surprised as he perhaps should be when he hears Hattie echo the sentiment at almost the exact same time.

Deckard smirks at both of them, entertained the way only big brothers can be after annoying their younger siblings, but there's relief there too, underneath, twined with a pleased sort of warmth that's always been reserved for them alone.

Owen rolls his eyes. As if there was ever a chance he and Hattie _wouldn't_ make up, once Hattie realized that not everything her country told her was as black and white as they made it out to be, and Deckard got his arse out of his head and actually told her the truth. It hasn't happened quite that way, and the situation that forced it is utter rubbish, but Owen will take what he can get.

He reaches out then to snag Hattie's hands, turning them over to frown at the capsules embedded in the palm of her right hand.

And Deckard calls _Owen_ reckless.

He glances at the dusty hunk of metal at Hobbs' feet. "Is that the extraction device?"

"Yeah," Hobbs picks it up and flips it over. Owen arches an eyebrow at the frayed wires sticking out of it. "It's pretty busted up though. Think you can fix it?"

"Well I'll have to, won't I?" Owen retorts dryly, taking the machine and peering at the damage. "I can't here, I don't have any equipment. But we're about two and a half hours away from a safehouse, and I have a lab there I can use. It shouldn't be too difficult." He pauses and looks up to take in Hattie's expression. There's a wrinkle between her eyebrows, and she's biting her bottom lip even as the rest of her face sits on its most neutral setting. "I'll fix it, Hatts, don't worry so much. You'll get frown lines, and then who'll carry on the pretty looks between the three of us?"

Hattie splutters out a laugh, but it brings a question to her eyes too, the same one as before, and Owen just… doesn't want to talk about it.

"Will Eteon be able to track us there?" Deckard cuts in, neatly diverging them from that line of inquiry, at least for the time being.

This is why if Owen had more than one brother, Deckard would still be his undisputed favourite.

"No, the plane should be hidden from anyone trying to follow it," Owen assures.

Deckard studies him for a moment, then smirks. "Cipher?"

Owen's expression mirrors his. "Of course. I would've given you one but you don't really have planes."

Deckard snorts. "If I need a plane, I'd just hijack one. Or call you. Now that you're actually picking up again."

Owen rolls his eyes. "It's been a year, Deck, you gotta let that go."

Deckard's more-teeth-than-smile response says _never_.

Owen rolls his eyes again, then glances at Hattie. She's watching the two of them wistfully, and Owen wonders how she could even stand it, to deliberately choose not to have anything to do with them for ten years, missing a decade of their lives, the things they've done, the conversations they've had, the moments they've shared, the trouble they've gotten into. At least he and Deckard have always kept an eye on Hattie, every time she was promoted, every time she was sent out of the country, every time her team completed an op, every time she was on leave. Hattie had never done the same in return. They would’ve known.

He sets the machine aside, then tugs Hattie up with him. She blinks at him.

"Come on," Owen steps past Deckard and heads for the restroom at the back. "Let's get you cleaned up a bit. You look a fright."

Hattie makes a derisive sound, but tellingly enough, she doesn't pull away, falling into step beside him instead. "Still prettier."

Owen smiles and throws an arm around his sister. "Well, that was never in question."

* * *

"I didn't know Shaw - your brother - I didn't know he had an engineering degree," Hobbs remarks once Owen and Hattie have disappeared into the back. "It's not in his file."

Deckard shrugs, cracking open another bottle of water. "Most people don't know a lot o' things about us, and we like to keep it that way." He pauses, taking a long draught. "There's not much to say. It's not in his file because he doesn't have a degree. But the army provided when they realized how smart he was, motor mechanics in particular, but he could work out how to fix just about anything you put in his hands, and he just got better at it once the higher-ups caught on and started giving him anything he wanted to learn more about. Including the entire engineering curriculum from Cambridge. By the time they made him a Major, he probably could've graduated with a Master's, if not a Doctorate, but he never attended a day of college. Pretty much self-taught, my brother."

He stops again, gulping down more water, keeping one ear on the indistinct murmur of his siblings' voices. He meets Hobbs' gaze. "Why'd you ask, Twinkle Toes?"

Hobbs shrugs and leans back, munching on his sixth ration bar. "Just wanted to know more, I guess. Every time your brother opens his mouth these days, it's like I'm listening to a completely different asshole than the one I chased through twelve countries trying to catch. You know, still an asshole, but a different flavour."

Deckard casts him a scathing look before scoffing. "You've just been lucky; you saw him with me, and now you're seeing him with us, and both times we've had a few… family issues crop up." He levels a stony look on the agent. "He'd still kick you in the face given half a chance, and I'd hold you down for him if I thought he needed the help."

Hobbs just grins like he thinks Deckard doesn't mean every word. "He won't though. Not after he went through that much trouble settling things with Toretto for you."

Deckard puts down his water. Then he stares at Hobbs until even this idiot seems to understand that he’s overstepped.

(Deckard’s never told Owen one specific thing since the culmination of the whole incident a year ago. He’d been proud that Owen could pull it off, and angry that Owen hadn’t let him help, and bloody _pissed_ that he could ever think Deckard would choose anyone over family, and just guiltily pleased underneath it all that here was proof - solid and reaffirming - that his little brother would sacrifice everything from time and effort to personal grudges and even his own damn pride if it meant making Deckard happy, meant making him safe, or as safe as anyone in their line of work can be.

But that’s the crux of it too - that Owen would feel forced to sacrifice anything for anyone, even for Deckard, and to the very people who'd helped put those scars on his little brother in the first place.

Shaws weren’t made to grovel and bow. Before last year, Deckard hadn’t even known that Owen _could_ , because he’d always ensured that Owen would never have to.

So it _aches_ , the shame of it, so much so that sometimes he wakes in the middle of the night with the corpses of Toretto’s crew still pressed behind his eyelids. He’s never told Owen, because Owen would probably punch him for being stupid, insist that it was _his_ decision, and it isn’t as if Deckard isn’t more aware now than he’s ever been before that Owen would do just about anything for him. But it stays with him all the same, because if nothing else, Deckard has never failed to make sure those who'd tried to force his little brother into a corner had paid for it in blood and body bags.

Never failed, until he had, and then Owen had been the one who'd had to pay for both of them instead.)

He finally blinks, when the first flicker of unease creeps into Hobbs’ eyes. He reaches for a pack of sausage rolls that should probably be microwaved first but he doesn't care enough to get up and do. He peels back the plastic wrapping and bites into the first one.

"That's not something you should joke about," He says, deceptively mild, once he's swallowed three mouthfuls and given himself enough time so that the first thing out of his mouth isn't an overreaction.

Hobbs doesn't miss a beat answering, but at least it's with less levity this time. "I wasn't joking."

"Then that's not something you should talk about," Deckard says, flat and final. _Don't remind me of all the reasons I should still put a bullet in your brain._

Hobbs stares back at him, then nods, once.

So the brute _can_ learn. Would miracles never cease.

A door clicks open in the distance, and a few seconds later, Hattie and Owen are back. They both stop and raise twin eyebrows the moment they step into the cabin.

"You two have another row?" Hattie asks, already striding forward, brash and fearless, the way she's always been, always needing to lead the charge.

"And it didn't end in a brawl?" Owen murmurs from behind her, hanging back, curious but calculating, the way _he's_ always been, always looking for the best way to take advantage of any situation.

Deckard's missed having them, all three of them, together.

"Nah, we were just talking about Deckard's ridiculous sibling complex," Hobbs tells them, that goofy smile of his back on his face.

Deckard rolls his eyes. Never mind. Hobbs will never learn.

"Deck's always been that way," Hattie agrees, curling back up in the seat beside Hobbs. She looks better, with the soot and dirt wiped off her face and probably a comb run through her hair. She smiles when Hobbs hands her a water bottle and some food.

Deckard glances over at Owen, who hasn't drifted any closer. He's watching Hobbs and Hattie, their easy friendship clear, and for a moment, he just looks… tired. Then he catches Deckard watching him and turns away instead. "I'll be in the cockpit."

He's gone before anyone can say anything else.

Deckard very carefully does not crush the bottle in his hand. Hattie stares after Owen, then looks at Hobbs, and then at Deckard. "…Would someone please tell me what happened between you three? Does it have anything to do with how Owen got those scars?"

Even Hobbs grimaces a little. He doesn't look sorry, exactly, but there's a glimmer of regret there that hadn't existed even after Deckard had delivered Toretto's kid back to him. Come to think of it, Deckard can't remember ever seeing it before so he doesn't know when it started.

"He was an idiot and fell out of a plane," He says out loud, parroting Owen's previous throwaway explanation before getting up and grabbing another bottle of water as he does. "I'm joining Owen. Don't touch my sister, Fat Boy, or I'll make you regret your entire life."

"Deckard!"

Deckard waves a hand over his shoulder but otherwise doesn't stop. His sister will interrogate Hobbs next, and Hobbs may or may not tell her, and that version will be… not great, least of all for Owen. But there are some things even Deckard can't just reveal, even to Hattie, especially when Owen's already shown how uncomfortable he is with it, and Cipher and all the problems that had stemmed from her actions fall firmly into that category.

Hattie will find out, one way or another, sooner or later, and if she's smart about it, she'll dig until she gets the whole of the story, no matter what Hobbs tells her. But until then, Deckard isn't saying a word, because as much as he loves her, even Hattie doesn't get this chapter of his and Owen's lives for free.

So he ducks out of the cabin, leaving Hattie still fuming behind him. He supposes he should count himself fortunate that she doesn't throw something after him.

In the cockpit, he slides into the empty seat next to Owen's, who isn't actually doing anything except sitting there with his eyes closed and his arms crossed. Deckard sets the extra bottle of water in a cupholder before busying himself with studying the designs on the console. He wouldn’t put it past his brother to have added a few of his own tricks.

"You're gonna leave Hattie alone with Hobbs?" Owen asks, eyes still shut.

Deckard sneers, and then sighs. "He won't hurt her. He knows she's innocent, and it helps that she's the good Shaw."

Owen scoffs but says nothing else.

"She should hear it from you," Deckard advises.

Owen remains obstinately silent for the rest of the flight.

* * *

Hattie turns a glare on Hobbs. She's pretty sure she doesn't have to say anything.

Hobbs glances at her and sighs, but then instead of explaining, he takes out his phone, fiddles with it for a few minutes, and then hands it over.

"The reports I wrote up after catching Sh- Owen, then Deckard, and then Cipher two years ago, and then a couple additions after new information came to light a year ago," Hobbs explains. "…You should probably talk to your brothers though, after you finish reading." He hesitates. "Owen Shaw was a bad guy, Hattie, who did a lot of bad things, no matter his reasons. He seems like a good brother, but that doesn't change what he's done."

Hattie opens the first file, spots a familiar name at a quick scan, and then levels a cool look on the American agent. "Even I've heard of Dominic Toretto. I doubt there's an agency in the world who hasn't. He and his gang have been responsible for many _, many_ deaths over the years, criminal and civilian both, and they've committed numerous crimes, from property damage to armed robbery to murder, and yet some of the rumours surrounding his escapes and pardons always say he had good reason, that he did it for _family_. If reasons shouldn't make a difference to how one's actions are perceived, what makes Toretto so special? Because he's your friend?"

Hobbs is silent. Hattie turns away before he can come up with an answer and settles down to read.

* * *

They land on the airstrip of a private hangar in the mountains of Finland. Beside it sits a house, all stone and reinforced glass, with an extensive garage attached to it. They're surrounded by trees on all sides, with not another soul in the area.

It takes a good three minutes for Owen to deactivate enough locks and alarms just to let them in through the front door.

"I appreciate paranoia as much as the next person, but this might be a bit of an overkill," Hattie mutters as the final fingerprint scanner beeps and the light turns green.

Owen shrugs as the front door slides open on its own. "In my defence, I use this house to test out new security systems or learn how to crack complicated ones that I've run into on my jobs. The ones that work, stay." He steps aside and gestures inside with a sweep of his arm. "Welcome to my humble abode. One of them at least."

The interior is - despite the plain imposing exterior - surprisingly cozy. The walls and floors are all dark smooth wood, decorated with thick rugs and the occasional portrait and plenty of bulletproof windows, the latter strategically installed in a way that would allow one to travel from room to room without ever actually letting anyone standing outside spot them if necessary. Vases and lamps decorate console tables and bookshelves scattered throughout the house, all with enough size and heft to make very handy murder weapons. And anybody who knows what they're looking for can guess at at least a handful of hidden rooms built into the walls.

Owen leads them to a sitting area, switches on the electric fireplace, and then points them down one hall. "Spare bedrooms - take whichever ones you want, bedsheets and extra changes of clothes are in the cupboards. Kitchen is down that way, utility room over there, there's an exercise room in the basement, and the keys to the garage are in one of the kitchen cabinets. I would advise against taking my cars for a joyride, but if you must, don't touch the Ford in the corner." He pauses. "Any questions?"

"Do you spend a lot of time here?" Hattie asks, still looking around.

"…Some," Owen nods. "This place is off the radar, and I put quite a bit of work into it and the surrounding area."

"I'm surprised you'd let me know the location then," Hobbs remarks.

Owen slants a frigidly contemptuous look at him. "Well, if the place ends up on every agency database from here to California, I'll know who talked." He hitches the extraction machine higher up over his shoulder. "I'll go get started on this. Don't interrupt me. I need peace and quiet."

And with that said, he turns and stalks off, presumably to wherever his lab is tucked away.

A moment of silence ensues, and then, "If every agency database from here to California learns of this place," Deckard says casually. "I'm coming for you, Hobbs."

Hobbs rolls his eyes, and they all begin making their way towards the spare bedrooms. "Hey, I'm ready for round two whenever you are, Princess. But I was honestly just making a comment. You Shaws are pricklier than a cactus."

He stops at the first door, sticks his head in, and when nothing explodes or otherwise tries to kill him, he lets himself through. Then he looks back, flicking a look between Deckard and Hattie. "I get it. This is probably one of his safest safehouses in the world, right? And nothing but the best for his siblings, so even if he has to put up with me, he'll do it." He rolls his eyes again. "You three aren't actually that hard to figure out."

He shuts the door before Deckard can decide whether or not to shoot him just for the sheer annoyance factor.

"I read the reports," Hattie says abruptly. "Hobbs gave them to me."

Deckard glances at her. "And?"

Hattie shrugs. "It's not as if I didn't hear about him in London. And before that, sometimes, we got word about his other heists too. He led the best crew in the world and hit places people thought were impenetrable - it would've been impossible _not_ to hear." She looks away, back in the direction Owen had gone, and then she says slowly, "I know he was finally arrested, but I didn't hear about the plane accident."

Deckard barks out a harsh laugh. " _Accident_. Is that what Hobbs calls it?"

Hattie meets his gaze. "They were fighting, his crew against Toretto's. Toretto prevented him from escaping the car he was in, in the cargo hold, and as a result, he was thrown through the windshield and out of the back of the plane when it started to crash."

Deckard rounds on her. "And that makes it all fine then? Cuz Toretto didn't physically pick 'im up and throw him out? Owen was just unlucky? You didn't see him hooked up to all those machines, Hatts. Half the bones in his body broken, couldn't even breathe on his own, _comatose_. I didn't know if he'd bloody wake up again, and after they threw me in a cell, they wouldn't even tell me if he'd died or not. Didn't bloody see him again until three years later when I was breakin' him out of that godforsaken shithole of a prison they dumped him in-"

"Deckard," Hattie says, and Deckard stops. Looks at her. She's calm, calmer than she'd usually be when his temper's running high the way it is now, because the two of them arguing is like throwing gasoline on fire. But Hattie just gives him a hard look, and then continues like he hasn't spoken at all, "That's what the report said. But Owen said he fell out of a plane. That's all he said. He never blamed Toretto, or even Hobbs, or anyone else." She arches an eyebrow. "You and I both know O's an expert at making himself look good while throwing other people under the bus, and it wouldn't have even been hard this time, they _literally_ threw him under a _plane_ , more or less." And for the first time, the same black rage Deckard has never quite been able to let go of, even after five years, flashes through her eyes. "So. Why didn't he? Even if he didn't want to talk about it, he could've just mentioned someone else being responsible. It's not like him to keep it to himself."

Deckard stares for a moment longer, then sighs, easing back on his heels, considering her question. "…Owen squared things with Toretto last year. They've agreed to let bygones be bygones."

Hattie's eyebrows almost launch into her hairline, and it would be amusing if not for the current choice of topic. "Let bygones be bygones? _Owen?_ Owen _Shaw?_ "

Deckard smirks despite himself. None of them have ever been good at letting go of grudges once they decided on them - Hattie's had lasted a decade, and probably would've lasted longer if Eteon hadn't ruined her life too - but Deckard and Hattie combined couldn't compare to Owen's capacity for holding on to his grievances, from the pettiest resentment to the most serious of injuries. Toretto landed himself firmly in the latter, and for Owen to let that go, well, it's no surprise Hattie is asking.

(It had always been more of a shock when she _hadn't_ asked, all those years ago, when she'd chosen to disown them instead, when she'd chosen Queen and country over family.)

At least she's finally asking now.

“Yeah,” Deckard replies simply, even as _for me, because I failed to avenge him, and then I failed to keep either of us safe, so he had to do it for us_ burns in his throat. “Don’t get me wrong, there’s no love lost between them, but Toretto agreed to forgive the actions taken against his crew-”

“Because even the two who died didn't actually die,” Hattie interjects irritably.

“Because Owen returned them to him,” Deckard corrects, and Hattie’s eyes widen. “Twinkle Toes didn’t include that? Yeah, Owen found 'em, brought ’em home, killed Cipher and handed over her entire network too.” He shrugs and offers a humourless smile. “If Toretto _hadn’t_ accepted, I’d have shot him in the bloody head.” He stops. “But you really should be asking Owen about this.”

Hattie’s lips thin, and she glances aside, crossing her arms in front of her. “…He’s still angry with me.”

Deckard snorts. “Hardly. If he were angry, you’d know, you _know_ that.” Studying his sister’s tense frame, he sighs. “Just give it a bit of time to settle, Hatts. It _has_ been ten years, and you haven't run through a hail of bullets with him recently like you did with me." That coaxes a brief grin from Hattie. "You can’t expect him to tell you things as easily as he used to, it’s _Owen_ , but especially with Hobbs right there the entire time.”

Hattie bites her bottom lip, then nods reluctantly. “I probably shouldn’t be too friendly with…”

“With the man who arrested both of us and helped put Owen in a coma?” Deckard finishes sardonically. “…Hobbs isn’t… the worst. I’m sure even Owen could admit to that much.” He sighs again. “He hasn’t done anything to you, Hattie, he’s even helped. And we’re technically not enemies anymore. So,” He smiles as comfortingly as he knows how to be. “You do what you think is best. And it’d probably help if at least one of us has a better relationship with one of Toretto’s people than ‘reluctant allies, and only because we’re dealing with something that could kill my sister and end the world as we know it’.”

He pauses, and Hattie doesn’t laugh, a troubled frown still creasing her brow, but at least she does dredge up a half-smile for him. Deckard sighs once more and reaches out to scrub a hand over her head, mussing up her hair the way she’s always hated, and right on cue, his hand is slapped away, followed by an annoyed glare.

He smirks and nods at the two rooms across from Hobbs’. “Come on. We could both do with a shower and some real food before getting a good night’s sleep. Owen will come through with the device. You’ll see.”

* * *

Luke’s pretty sure the two Shaw siblings outside his room have forgotten that the walls aren’t actually soundproof. He hears the whole conversation and listens to their respective bedroom doors open and shut before finally stripping down for a much-needed shower.

The bathroom's all polished wood and sleek marble, fully furnished down to a full set of towels and extra toothbrushes still in their wrapping. Luke will say this for Owen Shaw - the guy knows how to outfit a building and then some. This place feels more like a fancy nature resort than a safehouse to hide in.

Of course, fancy nature resorts don't come with the false bottom in the closet filled with firearms or the sliding panel in the wall holding a cache of grenades or the false mirror in the bathroom that - with a few presses of some buttons - lets him see right through to the other side. It's an amazing view, and also gives him a full display of the only road approaching the house and the sky beyond it, perfectly positioned in the case of a siege and no doubt reinforced to the nines like the rest of this place.

Sometimes, Luke still marvels at the fact that they'd managed to catch the younger Shaw brother at all. Or Deckard for that matter. Not that he'd ever say so. But somehow, without fail, people who go up against Toretto all either join him or lose. Or die. Mostly die. Luke would know - he used to be one of them, and these days, he likes Toretto fine, mostly, trusts him and his crew around his daughter even, but on occasion, when he really thinks about just how compromised he is when it comes to Dominic Toretto, it still chafes, just a little.

_One of Toretto's people_ , Deckard had called him, and the label sticks in his craw uncomfortably, even if it's… technically true by now, isn't it?

The thing is, the Shaws are… very easy to like once you get to know them, at least for Luke. He'd had an inkling of that, during the Cipher mission, when he'd set aside his misgivings and tried to see what it was that motivated a man like Deckard Shaw, who’d been one of the world's deadliest, most ruthless killers-for-hire, and yet had torn up half the globe on a vengeance spree against the ones who had put his younger brother in the hospital, and then was even willing to work with those very same people just for a chance at the woman who'd gotten her claws into his sibling in the first place.

That had probably been Luke's first mistake, if he'd wanted to keep any sort of objective - or better yet, negatively predisposed - distance at all. Because Deckard is exactly the kind of sarcastic bastard Luke can see himself getting along with, quick with his insults, clever with his banter, and a far sight more fun than Toretto, if Luke is honest. Not easily goaded, not really, there's always a part of Deckard that's perfectly in-control of everything he says and does, even when he loses his temper, but the man's always willing to give as good as he gets, and that includes the rapid verbal exchanges Luke has come to enjoy.

It's almost enough to make him forget just how much Deckard still hates him. Almost, because Deckard isn't actually as good at hiding that as he seems to think he is. Or maybe he just isn't bothering anymore, after what his brother did last year.

Luke remembers the guy who'd laid into him before the prison guards had even gotten him into his cell. That Deckard Shaw had been neither as coldly murderous as he'd been when he'd first gone after Toretto's crew, nor as calmly focused as he is now, spikes of emotion aside. No, that one had been brimming with barely contained fury, lashing out at the first target that had been presented to him, and at the time, Luke had simply put it down to Deckard being locked up for three years by that point. Most people don't do well in cages, and men like Deckard - men like Luke too, for that matter - are especially bad at it. And as far as Luke had heard, Deckard hadn't even been allowed out to stretch his legs. Hell, he'd only been taken out of that underground cement box and up to join the general populace as of a few months before Luke had been framed, for apparent good behaviour. So Deckard's bitter animosity had come as no surprise.

Luke hadn't known then, hadn't known until now, that they hadn't even told him what had happened to his brother. That he'd clearly even stooped to asking, and had still been rebuffed. That the first thing he'd heard about his brother at all after three years of silence had been Mr. Nobody quipping about Owen Shaw being sent to a nasty black site prison.

On hindsight, Luke's genuinely shocked the man hadn't pulled a gun on any of them in the entire time they'd worked together. Or an explosive, since that seems more his style. But then, if he had, he would've lost his chance at Cipher, and if there's one thing Luke's learned of the Shaws, especially the elder two, it's that they'd do anything for their flesh and blood.

And doesn't that sound fucking familiar?

Luke refuses to feel bad for arresting Owen Shaw, or even Deckard Shaw. He hadn't known either of them then, not beyond what their reputations spoke of them, and they had committed a lot of crimes and killed a lot of people over the years. Luke's job had been to get people like that off the streets, and he won't be sorry for succeeding. But…

_"What makes Toretto so special? Because he's your friend?"_

Luke doesn't actually like looking at the file that all American - and several other countries' - law enforcement has on Toretto, because the guy may have been pardoned, but everything he and his crew have done is still kept on record. And… well. Their total property and vehicular damage costs number in the billions at this point. And the overall estimated loss of life that they had been both directly and indirectly responsible for, not just criminals, not just police, but also civilian bystanders, is… nightmare fodder. Even Luke, who's well-known for his more… aggressive tactics throughout the course of his career, can't compare. It's not even just the number of deaths. It's the fact that most of them could be considered _collateral_.

Sometimes, Luke looks at Toretto when they're sitting down for dinner and saying grace, and he wonders if it even registers for the guy anymore, the sheer amount of damage he's wrought over the years. It certainly doesn't for his crew. Half the time, it's almost like a game for them, a quarter mile of speed and adrenaline at a time, and a carpet of destruction in their wake that they've never had to look back at and answer for.

Most days, Luke doesn't like to think about it, because if it were anyone else, he'd be throwing their asses in jail and chucking the keys into the nearest volcano. And he had, hadn't he? In the form of one Owen Shaw, who'd reportedly never said a word even when he'd been all but disappeared into a hole in the ground, but as it turned out, the whole Nightshade shitstorm hadn't been entirely on him. It didn't excuse any of the crap he'd pulled before that job, but…

Dominic Toretto had pulled a lot of crap over the years too, and the latest in a long line was stealing an EMP and cleaving a destructive bloody swathe through the streets of New York (and relations with Russia haven't been the same ever since), all because Cipher had been holding his son and Elena hostage. But at the end of it all, he'd walked away scot-free because he'd been blackmailed into it, and with Mr. Nobody backing him, and Luke too, there had never been any chance of it going any other way.

On the other hand, Owen Shaw had hit Moscow, London, and Spain, for a Nightshade device Cipher had hired him to build, with a very fucking big _or else_ painted on his family, and for a hacker of her caliber and influence, simply not having Deckard or Hattie or their mother physically locked up in a cell on her plane hadn't meant squat. At the very least, Owen clearly hadn't wanted to risk it, but he'd made an enemy of Toretto in the process, and like the inevitability of some fucked up kind of fate, he hadn't been able to walk away at all. Literally.

When it came down to it though, hadn't their situations been the same? What did it matter that Luke hadn't known, that Shaw hadn't told them? Toretto hadn't either. They should've found out anyway. _Luke_ should've found out. His job wasn't to _just_ catch bad guys, it was to find the root of the problem and neutralize it, and the root of that Nightshade job hadn't been Owen Shaw. It had been Cipher, and because Luke hadn't _done his fucking job_ , it had come back to bite them all in the ass, not even just once but twice.

_"What makes Toretto so special? Because he's your friend?"_

It's a strange contradiction. He isn't sorry for bringing down Owen. But at the same time, these days, he wishes there had been some other way to resolve it all. The Shaws don't seem to realize, but they make maintaining objectivity just as difficult as Toretto does.

Or maybe that's just Luke. There had been more than one reason he'd retired. For his daughter, but also, he'd looked at himself, at his place at Toretto's table, at all the laws he'd broken for them at one point or another, and he just… couldn't go back. There had been a reason his superiors had dropped him so easily, and it had never been just because of what the situation had looked like. Luke had always been a bit of a wild card, but at least he'd stayed - mostly - inside the lines, and he'd done good work. In recent years though, he's lost count of the number of deals and the amount of leeway he'd wrangled for Toretto and his crew time and time again.

Far better to be an independent asset these days, with a line open for the alphabet soup to reach him, and the freedom to deal with problems as he sees fit.

And as far as he's concerned? The Shaws aren't a problem. Or at least they're not _his_ problem anymore. He has no beef with Hattie, and he'd like to think she likes him well enough for two people who'd met less than two days ago, although that might change anytime now. She's tough and capable, she'd obviously inherited the family badass gene, along with a hefty dose of patriotism (that Luke does not foresee lasting beyond this mission, in all honesty). She's also got a pesky self-sacrifice streak that her big brother clearly does not approve of, but it seems that Deckard's talked her around, at least for now.

And Deckard. Deckard hates him, Luke knows that very well. There are times when he _almost_ doesn't, when he looks at Luke and that glint in his eyes looks more like tolerant amusement and less like the constant urge to stick a knife through Luke's ribs. But it's present enough that Luke never forgets that _Deckard_ will never forget his hand in his brother's hospital stay and subsequent imprisonment, no matter how civil some of their interactions have managed to get. And triple that the moment Owen Shaw himself is around in person.

Owen Shaw. He's the one Luke is least familiar with, but at least these days, he knows what drives the man above everything else. Owen had spent eleven months of last year hunting Cipher down, and ended up coming back with her entire network, Seoul-Oh, Yashar, and the God's Eye in tow. Luke had personally gone to oversee the inventory and cleanup of the remote location Cipher had used to dock her plane in Russia that Owen had given them, and all signs had pointed to a very one-sided, very explosive massacre. The bodies in the plane had only compounded it.

Frankly, Owen had been one hell of a criminal mastermind, and that had never been made clearer than when he'd set his sights on Cipher and gone after her with singular murderous intent and all the brilliant genius that had made him and any crew he'd led on each of his heists internationally famous. But Cipher had moved on, bested both Shaw brothers once already and had grown careless and overconfident, believing that whatever either of them pulled wouldn't be enough to win against her. She'd forgotten that when you dealt with beasts of their nature, you should never, ever turn your back on them, and Owen had made her pay for that oversight in full.

He'd killed her, killed her men, and dug up every location she'd ever put roots into, leading to the systematic dismantling of her entire life's work, because this has always been how Owen Shaw operates when he decides you're on his shit list - he doesn't just bury his enemies, he buries their legacies too, until there's nothing left of them to even remember them by. And then he'd practically tied a bow over the whole thing before dumping it at Toretto's feet. Seoul-Oh and Yashar and even the God's Eye had just been bonuses. But he'd done what no law enforcement agency in the world had managed to do for years, and he'd finished it in eleven months, all because he'd seen his brother hanging out with Toretto and had needed some way to guarantee Deckard's safety from them.

He needn't have bothered. If Deckard hates Luke, he positively _loathes_ Toretto.

The Shaw brothers share an unrepentant and codependent kind of devotion that might very well burn the whole damn world down one day, and Luke should probably worry more about that than he does. But like he said, it's not his problem anymore, and for better or worse, he's always admired loyalty like that. It had been what had drawn him to Toretto's ilk. And it's what draws him to the Shaws now.

(Sometimes, Luke looks at both groups and thinks the only difference between them is where they each started and where they've ended up. Toretto and company - street kids and misfits brought together by the lure of excitement and money and family they've killed to keep. And the Shaws - family by birth, military turned rogue, gone their separate ways but with strong enough bonds to tear the world apart if even one of them was ever endangered. One set was lucky enough to become the good guys, and the other didn't give a damn about becoming the bad guys, but at the end of the day, they were nothing but two sides of the same damn coin.)

And now their sister's back in the picture, and only time would tell if she takes after her brothers after all. Ten years ago, it had apparently been no. But now that her country has shafted her this badly, Eteon or no, it might just be enough to tip her to the other side, especially with some of the secrets that are finally coming to light.

As for Luke… He's running with a family that can each give him a run for his money all on their own, two-thirds of which would love nothing more than to gut him very slowly, but also won't because they love each other too damn much to risk destroying the uneasy truce they've struck with _Toretto's people_. The only way that'll change is if Luke or Toretto or one of the others breaks it first, and Luke has no intention of lighting that powder keg himself.

He likes them, is the latest unfortunate reality that he's come to realize about himself. Deckard and Hattie at least, Owen still to be decided, if only because the middle Shaw spends eighty percent of the time pretending Luke doesn't exist and the other twenty treating him with perfectly icy civility. Luke doesn't begrudge him it, and he can respect the fact that the man's professional enough to mostly set aside his personal feelings in favour of concentrating on the task at hand.

But if over the course of the rest of this mission, he gets to know all three of them some more, in whatever way they let him, then it can only improve his chances of not getting stabbed in his sleep in the long run. After all, truce or no, they're still Shaws, and as Luke has learned, violence comes to every last one of them as easily as affection for each other does.

Luke can live with that. He's a bit of the same way after all. Maybe that's why he finds that the longer he works with them, the more he enjoys their company.

(And the more he enjoys their company, the more difficult it is to remember why he'd worked so hard to put the brothers away to begin with. But it had been the same with Toretto, who doesn't have half the fire the Shaw family embodies, and maybe that's been Luke's problem all along - he's always been attracted to the ones that burn the brightest, and the Shaws are no exception. Darker, bloodier, and living further over the line than anyone Luke's ever trusted to have his back, even Hattie because she may have stayed the law-abiding citizen, but from what Luke's seen, none of her anger at her brothers actually stems from the crimes they've committed. They're bright and fierce and unapologetic about any of it, determined to leave their mark on a world that would rather see them dead, and that much more dangerous because of it.

And when it comes down to it, Luke doesn't give a damn if they hate him or not because he's never been very good at staying away from things that might kill him in the end.)

* * *

Owen doesn't come out for dinner, and it's three in the morning when Hattie can't stand tossing and turning in bed anymore. She's tired, but also frustratingly on edge. She has no doubt Owen will do what he promised, because it's her brother and he'd still do anything for her even after all these years, and because he _promised_ , and Deckard had once taught him that a man's word once given should always be kept. But it's still impossible to fully fall asleep with the capsules still inside her.

She grabs a bathrobe instead, throwing it on over her pajamas before slipping out of her room, tiptoeing past Deckard's room and making her way to the sitting area. She foregoes the sofas, flopping down on the fluffy sheepskin rug instead. She stares up at the ceiling and thinks of how quickly life can change. It's been barely forty-eight hours and she's out of a job, out of a home, on the run for a crime she hadn't committed, and carrying a virus that could kill her and half the world's population.

She wonders if this was how Deckard had felt, lost and cornered and fighting a losing battle. Then again, it's _Deckard_. He'd probably handled becoming a fugitive just fine, and if he hadn't, he'd had Owen to help him. Because Owen had refused to believe anyone over his brother, because ten, twenty, thirty, almost forty years now, and in all that time, there has never been a moment when Deckard wasn't still the highest authority Owen will ever answer to.

Hattie had been the same way, once. She's four years younger than Owen, and ten years younger than Deck, and she'd looked up to Owen but it had been Deckard whom she'd wanted to emulate. He'd joined the army at twenty so she'd wanted to too, doubly so when Owen had followed in their brother's footsteps after he'd turned twenty. She'd worked hard to make them proud, studied and trained and very quickly impressed her superiors, who'd already expected great things from her after Deckard and Owen had each taken the ranks by storm.

And then. And then Deckard had defected. Killed his whole team, they'd said, before going on the run. The higher-ups had been _concerned_ for a while, apparently, but Deckard's betrayal had taken everyone off-guard.

She hadn't believed it at first. She'd called Deck as soon as she'd been able to get away, on all six phone numbers he'd given her, and hadn't gotten through a single one. So she'd called Owen next, who'd picked up but told her he didn't know what was going on either and to keep her head down for the time being while he went to interrogate the right people to find out. So she'd done that, and she'd waited, and she'd gritted her teeth against all the people around her whispering about her traitor brother and side-eyeing her like they were wondering if she'd desert next, and she'd hated every minute of it.

Maybe it had started there though. She'd heard nothing else for weeks, and she'd refused to buy into it, but maybe some of it had stuck anyway, about off-the-books missions Deckard had apparently taken, about assassinations he'd carried that weren't officially sanctioned, about how he'd been slowly going off the rails.

And it wasn't as if the official evidence available to everyone hadn't been damning enough.

Owen had called her back, as promised, and that time, he'd been evasive. He wouldn't explain, had told her to call Deck directly, to keep calling him until he picked up and bloody well told her, and she'd known even then that the only reason _Owen_ wasn't telling her had been because Deckard must've told him not to.

Owen had been shipped out to some other location the next day, with no direct line of communications in or out. Looking back, with everything she knows now, Hattie thinks it was probably an attempt by the higher-ups to separate her family, to make sure they weren't all colluding with each other. But at the time, she'd been worried and frustrated and increasingly resentful, because she couldn't understand why either of her brothers couldn't just tell her what was happening - they'd always told each other everything. She'd called Deckard a few more times, again and again like Owen had said to do, and the one time he'd finally picked up, he'd told her some rubbish about doing what needed to be done and how it was better for her to quit trying to contact him.

He'd hung up without so much as a goodbye, and four months later, reports of a new mercenary matching Deckard's description started going around. That had been the last straw. She'd thought that since neither Deckard nor Owen could give her an explanation to counter the evidence, then the evidence had to be true, especially since Deckard had clearly started killing for money, and her eldest brother simply hadn't been able to tell it to her straight.

It had hurt. Deckard had been the one to teach her about not betraying your own beliefs, and didn't that include remaining loyal to the country they'd sworn to protect? It was what they’d chosen to do, wasn’t it? So why would Deckard turn his back on that?

Almost a year later, Owen had called to say sorry. He hadn't said why, but three days later, Major Owen Shaw of the SAS followed his brother out the door with a dishonourable discharge blackening his record, and Hattie hadn't even bothered to call him. Six months down the road, reports of a heist that had robbed the French military of three warehouses' worth of weapons crossed every British law enforcement agency's desk, orchestrated by none other than her second traitor brother.

After that, as far as she'd been concerned, she had no family anymore. She'd cut them off, her brothers and her mother, changed her phone numbers and ignored any attempts they made to contact her - Deckard, none except for the birthday present he sent every year like clockwork; Owen, twice a year but she only knew that because he’d always vacuum and take out her garbage and restock her tea for some reason; and Mother, no rhyme or reason but more often than either of her sons and no matter how many times Hattie had her phone numbers changed. In return, Hattie had thrown out every present, moved flats three times before giving up and just pretending she didn't know, and never picked up when she recognized one of her mum's numbers on the caller ID.

(And then there had been those three years where there had been no presents at all, and she had to go buy her own tea, and she’d known why of course, but she’d told herself it had been a relief.)

She regrets that now, and she hates the feeling. She remembers being a kid and thinking she'd never regret anything so long as she had her brothers beside her.

She wonders when she'd forgotten that. They'd become criminals, yes, but they'd been her brothers first, and apparently faithful service to Queen and country means nothing in the long run anyway. Eteon had made her look guilty, and that was all it took. Fifteen years of active duty, and it didn't mean a damn thing in the face of a single moment of fabricated betrayal.

Maybe Owen had had the right of it. Left when the going had still been good, and set the whole damn lot who'd turned their backs on Deckard on fire on his way out. At least then, it would've been her own choice, and she could've even enacted some righteous vengeance for her brother while she was at it.

Too late now. Far too late. And her reasons - the ones she'd held on so strongly to for the past decade - seem horribly flimsy now.

"Hattie?"

Hattie jolts half-upright, blinking at Owen standing beside the farthest sofa. Ugh, she's really out of it if she didn't even hear him coming.

"Owen," She sits up, and then holds out an insistent hand until he rolls his eyes and joins her on the floor. They sit with their backs against one of the sofas, bare feet buried in the rug, shoulders pressed together and hands twined like they're children again, Owen’s thumb brushing briefly over the injection points in her palm before clasping his own palm to hers more firmly.

"How's the machine coming along?" She asks after a long minute of silence.

"Adequately," Owen answers with the certainty of someone who's never had to be wrong a day in his life. To Hattie, it's still just as reassuring as it had been when she'd been a child. "I'll be done by morning."

They sit for another few minutes of silence.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" She asks at last. "I know Deckard probably told you not to-" Owen doesn't nod, but his eyelashes flutter briefly in that way that tells her she's right. "-but this was something _I should've known_. Was it- Was it because I didn't look into it myself? Was it some sort of… family loyalty test-"

"No," Owen interrupts, voice still quiet, but adamant in a way that brooks no argument. "That's not it, Hattie. Deckard wanted to protect you. That was the main reason. The less you knew about Eteon, the better the chances of them leaving you alone."

She snorts. Yes, and look where they are now. Owen smiles back wryly, but only for a moment before he continues, "The other reason was that Deck wanted to give you a choice too. He didn't want you to feel obligated to leave as well, or worse, try and bring Eteon to the military's attention. You were proud of what you'd achieved in the military, you had a good career going, and you weren't so high up on the ladder yet that you couldn't work through any negative attention that fell on you because of him. He didn't want to be the one who took that option away from you."

"So he _hid the truth?_ " Hattie asks incredulously. "That makes _no sense_ , Owen! What- You know what option I didn't have? Making a choice after getting all the facts! I gave another _decade_ to these people, O! And it meant sod all in the end."

She lets her head fall back to thump against the seat of the sofa. If she'd known… If she'd known, she would've followed Deckard right out the door, just like Owen, because maybe it wasn't all on their military, their government, because Eteon obviously does good work in framing people at the drop of a hat, but they still hadn't questioned her, hadn't questioned Deckard, and surely after so many years of loyal service, they deserved that much?

_If she'd known_.

"…I didn't say it was a _good_ reason," Owen mutters.

Hattie jabs a cross elbow into his side. "Then why didn't _you_ say anything?"

Owen says nothing for a while, just staring into some middle distance, cold and remote as stone, the way he sometimes got even as a kid, when he'd been thinking about something or other, lost in that big head of his until Deckard went to fetch him. Hattie leans against him and waits him out, because you need nothing so much as you do patience when it comes to Owen Shaw.

"I didn't think it was a good reason," Owen says at last, turning to look at her. "But you know how I am, Hattie. I didn't think it was a good reason, but it might've been, and Deckard's always been better at knowing the difference."

Hattie stares at him for a moment, then sighs and drops her head against his shoulder. She does know. Owen, who even as a child would pick fights with people bigger (but rarely meaner) than him, just to make them mad, just to see their expressions twist and their cheeks flush red and their tempers snap, just to see if he could make them cry, because even then, to Owen, no one but Deckard and Hattie and Mum had mattered, because the rest of the world may as well have been puppets, and Owen had always wanted to be the one to make them dance.

And for as long as Hattie can remember, Deckard had never tried to curb it, never tried to teach Owen otherwise. Maybe he'd seen it from the beginning and realized it had been a lost cause, because even then, nobody had understood Owen as well as Deckard had, and here is a truth he'd been born with - Owen has always lacked empathy to a degree that some would call monstrous if they actually knew, and sometimes, Hattie thinks the true miracle is how much Owen _does_ care about family. Deckard's influence too, she's pretty sure - Deckard, who'd taught Owen how to fake it in a world that wouldn't be kind to someone who lacks such an intrinsic human quality; Deckard, who'd beaten up anyone who gave Owen grief when he'd been less adept at hiding his _oddness_ ; Deckard, who'd finished any fights Owen had started just for the heck of it and bloodied the other kids up so bad they'd kept their mouths shut on their own for fear of Deckard coming back for them.

For her brothers, it had never been a matter of right or wrong. Deckard had loved Owen more than anything, and it had never mattered to him how wild Owen got. He'd scolded him and smacked him upside the head, told him to be more careful and to watch that recklessness of his, it was going to get him in real trouble one day, but when it came down to it, Owen had still done exactly as he'd pleased, and Deckard had never failed to make sure he'd survive it. No matter the trouble Owen had gotten into, Deckard had never held it against him, had spoiled him probably more than anyone else would've approved of, had never given up on him - and in exchange, Owen had cared for nothing and no one as much as he had his brother.

Hattie had watched it all, growing up. Youngest, smallest, baby of the family and the only girl, and her first clear memory hadn't been of their flighty mother or a song or a story; it had been Deckard crouched in front of her with Owen completing their circle, and her eldest brother telling her second eldest, "This is your sister. Your family. She's ours now. And we protect our own. Understand?"

Owen had looked at her, eyes a chilling detached green, but he'd looked at Deckard too, and then he'd nodded. Hattie hadn't known the significance then. But she'd learned it, year by year, how rough and gentle Deckard had been with both of them but always a little something extra with Owen, how Owen had stared at her sometimes like he'd had no idea what to do with her, but he'd also never failed to walk her to and from school safely, and the one time some boy had pushed her out of the swing at the playground, Owen - who hadn't even witnessed the incident, but Hattie had mentioned it when she'd met him at the school gates with grass stains on her new dress - had somehow managed to grab him the next day while class was in session, tie him upside-down to the swing by his shoelaces, and left him bawling for his parents. And her brother hadn't cared one whit that the kid had been her age.

(If Hattie's honest, she hadn't cared either. All she'd been was smug, because nobody in town messed with her without one of her brothers taking exception to it.)

Owen hadn't loved her right away. But he'd learned to, because Deckard had told him to, and then because she'd become family to him too, and Owen had carried that with him from childhood to adulthood and had never once strayed from it.

(The world should be grateful. Owen Shaw could've turned out much, much worse.)

The military had been the same, just a means to an end, and Deckard had joined, so Owen had too. Leaving would've been just as easy for him, and honourably or dishonourably would've meant nothing to him. But if Deckard had told him that it would mean something to Hattie, then Owen would've believed him, even if he hadn't felt it personally.

She mulls that over now, and then has to laugh. Owen's chin nudges her head. "What?"

"I can't believe I ever thought you two _wouldn't_ turn to a life of crime," Hattie admits.

Owen's frown is audible. "That's true enough for me. But Deck… if it wasn't for Eteon-"

Hattie scoffs. "He's covered for you your whole life, Owen. And I'd never blame him for that, because we're _family_ , but obeying the law wasn't exactly our top priority."

Because it wasn't as if she hadn't committed her share of petty crime back in the day. Owen had never needed her to help alibi him, because by the time she'd been old enough for that sort of thing, he'd been mostly fine on his own, and Deckard had taken care of the rest. But he'd taught her how to con food out of vendors with a sweet smile and an innocent blink and how to tell a believable lie under pressure and how to walk out of the local pharmacy without paying, and then Deckard had found out and added how to throw a punch and how to pick pockets and how to free herself from a pair of handcuffs.

On hindsight, none of them had really been made for the straight and narrow. Considering what their mother does for a living, that should come as less of a surprise than it does. But for a while, after Deckard had enlisted, and then Owen had followed, and then Hattie had joined up as well, she'd honestly thought that that would be the life for them.

She sighs and tightens her grip on Owen's hand. "Alright, fine. I still don't like it, but it's not like I can go back and change it." She pauses, and then adds quietly, "I'm sorry I didn't push more though. I should have."

Owen is silent for a moment, and then, because for someone who loves talking circles around people until he has them confused and floundering and exactly where he wants them, he's also always been awfully good at cutting to the heart of a matter, he says, "I'm sorry we left you behind. We shouldn't have."

And that. That had always been what had hurt most, hadn't it? Not the law-breaking, not the charges, not the supposed betrayal or dishonourable discharge or the multiple felonies they'd each painted across the globe like a macabre roadmap, even if that was what she'd focused on.

No. It had been the fact that Deckard had left, and then Owen had too, and _neither had asked her to go with them_.

Hattie takes a deep breath, and then lets it out, and for the first time in a decade, most of the hurt leaves with it. "…I'm still going to strangle Deck later."

Owen makes an amused sound. "Could be fun. We haven't fought in a while. We can make it a three-way."

And they won't go easy just because she's a woman. Hattie grins, sharp with too much teeth to be within throwing distance of nice. "You're on. Deckard doesn't get a choice."

Owen smirks back, and this is familiar too, the two of them plotting together, much to the long-suffering exasperation of their older brother when he'd found them, home on leave, and yet he'd never failed to join in on their schemes anyway as they’d left screams and chaos in their wake.

(Maybe they’d all lacked a little something, to varying degrees. They’d just taken it in different ways. Owen had only cared insofar that knowing how to pretend the opposite would get him what he wanted, so he’d learned how to dial up the charm. Hattie had perhaps cared a little too much, had wanted to care, and _had_ cared, but had also cared about not caring _enough_. Deckard had been their middle ground, the most balanced between them - enough psychopathy in him to understand Owen, and enough of a heart to encourage Hattie’s, and he’d never, not once, complained about having to deal with such troublesome siblings, with Hattie who was so much younger, or with Owen who was so much more work.

Deckard hadn’t much cared about anyone outside the family either. Is it any wonder she and Owen still adore him even now?)

They settle into silence once more, easier than it's been in a long time, and Hattie is loath to break it, but they're not finished, not yet.

"Will you tell me about what happened?" She asks, and when she tilts her head to peer up at him, the darkness is almost enough to hide the scars.

Against her side, Owen doesn't stiffen or show any outward signs of discomfort. But he doesn’t say anything for a long while either, and when he does, it's an evasive, "I should get back to work."

Hattie digs her nails into his hand. " _Owen_."

Owen sighs. "Don't you already know? Deckard must've told you. Or that government hack must've said something."

They had, a bit. Hobbs had given her the reports, and Deckard had explained a little more. But, "I want to hear it from you."

Owen sighs again, and for a moment, it seems like he might get up and leave anyway. Not that Hattie would've let him.

But he stays, in the end, and it comes out in pieces, in the creeping light of daybreak:

Of Cipher, approaching Owen with a well-paying job, but also photos and video of Deckard and Hattie going about their lives, and a smiling mouth full of threats she'd follow through with if Owen refused her the way his brother had;

Of the job itself, challenging enough to be fun, Moscow and London enough to get the blood pumping but leaving Toretto and his crew and Hobbs in their dust with ease;

Of Letty Ortiz, possibly Owen's biggest and only mistake, on a schedule with no other precision driver to take her place in his crew on such short notice, but also underestimating Toretto's love for her, and just flat-out too proud to let her go because it would've been too much like losing, and Owen - like all Shaws - has never quite figured out how to lose with grace;

And then of Lusitania, of almost getting away, almost succeeding, of the plane and the fight and the fall, and then nothing at all, until he'd woken up almost a year later in a hospital filled with spec ops soldiers, scarred and broken and spending the next few months struggling to walk again and hearing about Deckard, who went after Toretto's crew, _for Owen_ , but was brought down as well and then locked away in some unknown prison;

Of Owen's own transfer to a black site prison as soon as he was strong enough to manage on his own in the cement box they'd shoved him into;

Of the next two years half-waiting for Deckard to rescue him and half-expecting to die there;

Of Deckard breaking him out and thinking he'd only done it because their mother had forced him to, of saving Toretto's baby because that had been the deal and Deckard was nothing if not a man of his word once given, of Cipher's escape in the end, and then of following Deckard back to the Torettos' house and watching him sit down for dinner with their _enemies_ as if the events of three years ago - as if _those three years_ \- hadn't happened at all;

Of spending the next eleven months dodging Deckard and tracing Cipher's footsteps and picking up Toretto's wayward roadkill, because there were very few Owen hated more than Toretto and his people, but no one he loved more than Deckard, and if Deckard wanted them, then after landing his brother in prison for three years because of his own mistakes, the least Owen could do was make it safe for him, make it _right_ , as well as he knew how;

And finally of having it out with Deckard right there practically on Toretto's front lawn, of Deckard realizing what Owen had been up to and why, and of Owen realizing that he'd gotten it all wrong after all.

Once Owen has finished, Hattie tries to think of something intelligent to say, perhaps sympathetic even, and then she gives up and just goes with, “You thought _Deckard_ would ever choose _anyone_ over you?”

Owen huffs, and Hattie suspects the only reason he doesn’t cross his arms like a petulant child is because she’s still holding his hand.

“Well how was I to know?” Owen mumbles sullenly.

“It’s Deckard,” Hattie says dryly. “You should’ve known.”

Owen glares at her, and then away, because she’s right, and they both know it. “…It was a pretty rubbish three years,” He mutters, something harsh and jaded and almost haunted deepening the lines in his face, and in the light of the dawn leaking through the curtains, his scars suddenly look that much more severe. “And the year after wasn’t exactly a highlight either.”

Hattie studies him for a moment, then twists a little until she can press her free hand to those scars. Owen frowns but doesn't pull away. She suspects he can’t even feel much of anything anymore, and that might be worse than pain.

"I'm surprised you didn't just kill them all," She tells him, because if even she can feel the itch of it in her fingertips now, in her throat, in the pulse of her heartbeat as she thinks about a world where Owen hadn't survived the fall, or the coma, or the prison sentence, the urge must writhe like poison in Owen.

"I wanted to," Owen admits tersely. "But I thought Deckard didn’t, and then later, I'd gone to too much trouble to bother. And-" He shakes his head. "And if they best me _again_ -"

"They wouldn't," Hattie says, voice pitched low but confident all the same. "They _wouldn't_. Not with all three of us after them."

Beneath her hands, Owen freezes, and Hattie gets the rare pleasure of seeing her brother completely and openly caught off-guard.

(Deckard aside, she thinks she'd kill anyone else who manages to put that expression on his face, and it should be troubling, how little that thought troubles her.)

"Hattie," Owen starts, then stops like he's reconsidering his words, and then he finally tells her, "You don't have to." He smiles, light and humouring. "You're the good Shaw."

_You're not like me_ , he means to say, or even _you're not like us_ , and that’s infuriating enough for her to yank on his ear hard enough to make him wince.

"You could've been killed," Hattie says, and she doesn't know what she would've done five years ago if she'd heard - if she'd _let_ herself hear - more about the whole incident than just the fact that Owen had been arrested.

But she hadn't. She hadn't known about the plane, the injuries, the coma. She wonders what she would've done if she had known, and then wonders why she has to wonder at all, because no grudge in the world would ever be worth letting either of her brothers go unavenged.

"I could be killed on every job I take," Owen replies, sounding genuinely amused this time. "Perks of the lifestyle. And the military wasn’t exactly a desk job. We weren’t made for safe, Hattie."

"But Toretto came the closest," Hattie counters, and the reality of that sits in her chest like a rock, that Dominic Toretto came the closest by a _very_ long shot, and maybe some part of her is still that little girl who'd thought her brothers indestructible, because it had never truly occurred to her before that either of them could be _hurt_ , and hurt so badly. That they'd been caught at all had been a shock.

Owen's expression sours a little. "Believe me, I know. I wear the reminder."

Hattie huffs, rubs a thumb over the rough-smooth skin of Owen's cheekbone, and then makes herself comfortable against Owen's side again. "…If you died, or if Deckard died, I would do whatever it took to make sure anyone even remotely connected to it regretted ever even thinking about going after you."

It's not a terribly profound or meaningful declaration, even coming from her, because she knows that Owen and Deckard would do the exact same thing for her. It's still the first time she's acknowledged it out loud, and it settles in her bones like an immutable truth of the universe, because when it comes down to it, she's never considered anything more important than her family, and in that, she's exactly like Deckard and Owen. Hattie isn't as cavalier about murder as her brothers are, but she's never had a problem with it either. It was why the military had suited all of them so well, enough action and violence and danger dressed up in a patriotic overcoat to mostly satisfy the beasts sleeping inside each of them. And even now, if - like her brothers - she was let out into the world to do anything she pleased, she's still not sure she would turn to a life of crime, but she certainly has the skillset for it, and it's not as if the prospect of it is particularly upsetting to her.

Besides, considering her current situation, it's probably a more likely future than she'd previously ever planned for.

She tugs their joined hands up, unfolding them to study the capsules embedded into her palm, thinks of the way Deckard had come to help her the moment he'd heard she'd needed it, thinks of Owen not far behind.

_Our family first. Always._

Deckard had taught Owen that, and then they'd both taught her that. Shaws against the world, because at the end of the day, what does the world even matter if all three of them aren't still in it together?

She startles when a hand drops on her head and ruffles her hair, and it's instinct to reach up and swat the offending limb away. She looks up to meet Owen's smirk with a scowl.

"Of course you would," Owen says before she can snap at him. "You're a Shaw after all. But because you're a Shaw, I don't want you to do anything you might regret. And you're a lot more understanding than I'll ever be, Hatts."

Understanding, huh?

"I can understand Toretto doing whatever it took to get his girlfriend back if he really loved her that much," Hattie shoots back fiercely. "I can understand why he did everything he could to stop you after he agreed to help Hobbs. I can even understand that getting you thrown from the plane probably wasn't Toretto's intention, but that also means that when he prevented you from escaping, I understand that what he wanted was for you to die in that crash." Owen goes still. Hattie hurtles on, her grip on her brother's hand now tight enough to bruise. "Because not even you would've been able to survive being trapped in the middle of that explosion, O. So you're right. I absolutely understand all of that. But that doesn't mean I have to forgive _any of it_. And I bloody well _don't_."

Being thrown from the plane had actually probably saved Owen's life that day, and judging from the blankness in her brother's expression, he already knows that.

A year in a coma, months of physio, two years in a hole in the ground, scars and dead nerves along half his body that he'll carry with him for the rest of his life, and the people responsible free and clear, all in exchange for not burning to death in a plane crash.

Hattie wonders if Owen has ever thought - even for a moment - that it wasn't worth it.

She can't bring herself to ask.

With a deft twist, Owen yanks his hand from hers, but before she can figure out if he's angry or just wants some space, he's dropped an arm over her shoulders instead, familiar and protective, and it's a matter of seconds for her to tuck her legs up and curl into him like she's done countless times before. Owen doesn't say anything, staring straight ahead, shadows playing over impassive features, so Hattie lets it go. She knows the most important truths now, and he knows where she stands, and for the time being, that's enough.

She doesn't really register drifting off, and she only stirs briefly when she feels Owen pick her up and carry her back to her room, just as easily as he had when she'd still been a child and he'd finally hit his growth spurt. She's out again in a minute, somewhere between her brother tucking her into bed and closing the door behind him as he leaves.

She's missed him, she thinks drowsily, and it's what stays with her as she falls asleep once more.

* * *

Luke wakes at six. He goes through his morning routine, fixes himself some toast, then goes downstairs to use the exercise room for about an hour. He comes back up at seven-thirty, fetches his clothes from the dryer, grabs a shower, and then ducks into the kitchen again to find Deckard up and dressed as well, coffee in one hand as he pulls down two more mugs from the shelf.

Three guesses who those are for. Luke strides over and takes one anyway. Deckard shoots him a dirty look but doesn't seem particularly inclined to start anything this early in the morning and simply grabs one more mug instead.

It’s mostly non-perishables packed away in the shelves, but there’s stuff like eggs and milk too, brought in from the plane last night like Owen had just done his shopping or something, so breakfast will be plenty filling.

To his surprise, Deckard breaks the silence first. "You didn't name Owen for what happened last year in your reports."

Luke wonders if he extrapolated that from what Hattie told him, or if he just hacked into the DSS database itself before he went to bed last night. Probably both. Luke shrugs as he leans against the counter and watches Deckard cook. "I put it down as an anonymous tip. Less messy that way. You think I _like_ doing a crapload of extra paperwork every time I need to add so much as a footnote to the original reports?"

Deckard glances at him, unamused and unreadable, before turning back to the stove, and he doesn't say anything else on the matter. But he cracks enough eggs and fries enough bacon to include Luke, and Luke is gracious enough not to mention it. It hangs between them though, the fact that it would've made a lot of people even more nervous if they'd realized Cipher and her whole network - a terrorist that most people hadn't even known was a woman, let alone anything else - had been single-handedly annihilated by one man in less than a year. Evil hacker lady or no, killing that many people and rooting out that many secrets all at once probably would've thrown Owen Shaw’s pardon straight back out the window, if only because it would've reminded everyone of just how dangerous he could be. Owen probably wouldn't have cared, but… well. Like Luke said, less messy all around if he just left it at anonymous tip and rearranged a few things to make it look like Cipher's body had been left on the plane all along.

He doesn't say any of that of course. Deckard has probably already guessed it all, even if he might be unsure of Luke's reasons. Instead, Luke turns and starts setting the table as the sizzle of the frying pan fills the kitchen.

Hattie comes in half an hour later just as Luke is starting on his fourth helping and Deckard is plating three other servings while eyeballing him in a way that says if Luke takes any more food, he's going to be eating bullets next.

Luke grins back, wide and unrepentant, and Deckard turns away with an irritated sound that turns into a surprised sound when Hattie shuffles up from behind and wraps her brother in a hug, hooking her chin over his shoulder and letting him take most of her weight.

She meets Luke's eyes. There's something simultaneously sharper and more relaxed about her this morning, settled in her skin in a way he's never seen from her before, and that much more clear-headed because of it.

Deckard tilts his head to the side as he sets the pan down. "You and Owen talked?"

Ah.

Hattie nods.

"Good talk?"

She nods again before finally letting go and stepping away, only to accept the plate of food Deckard hands her. She still hasn't looked away from Luke.

"Are you going to go after my brothers again?" She asks, watching him the way a hunting bird might watch its prey. It's a good look on her.

Luke shrugs. "I'm retired."

Deckard always looks downright homicidal with a side of disgust when Luke says that, and this time isn't any different. He doesn't seem to get what Luke means by it. Yeah, he's still going on missions, mostly the ones that bring him fist-to-face with the fuckers who keep trying to end the goddamn world, but policing psychopaths isn't part of the deal anymore. So long as the Shaws don't go the way of the likes of Eteon - and honestly from what Luke's seen, it's not likely, they love life too much, and they're not going to destroy their own playground, even if they do regularly upend the sandbox and make the other kids cry - then it's not Luke's problem.

Deckard doesn't get it, but Hattie might, judging by the thoughtful look she levels at him. At the very least, she stops trying to kill him with her eyes and sits down for breakfast instead.

"Owen said he'll be finished fixing the machine sometime this morning," She informs them as Deckard also sits down. She jabs her fork at her brother. "Don't say I told you so."

Deckard doesn't but he does smirk. Hattie rolls her eyes back before continuing, "Once the virus is out, do we go after Eteon? It's not as if Brixton will just stop."

"He'll stop if his boss orders him to stop," Deckard corrects. "But I doubt they will so long as Brixton is a viable asset to them."

"We should get the virus to the CIA first," Luke interjects. "They can lock the thing down so Eteon won't be able to get at it right away, and while they're doing that, we can take down Brixton."

Deckard frowns, but not like he particularly disagrees. "Hatts? The CIA did offer you immunity."

"It's an idea," Hattie concedes, but there's a doubtful curl to her lips. "But how do we know they'll keep their word?"

And there goes the patriotism. Or at least any trust in government bodies.

Deckard grunts, reaching for his coffee. "Owen."

Hattie blinks, then glances at her brother. Deckard glances back, and something unspoken passes between them before Hattie shrugs and nods. "So at least we'll know if they don't."

Luke eyes them both and thinks back to the conversation - argument? Lecture? - that he'd had front-row seats to last year.

_"You think I don't know you have people in a dozen different agencies worldwide willing and able to offer our sister immunity if she ever needs it?"_

He wonders which of the agents he'd met had been one of Owen's people. Or maybe he hadn't met them at all, but either way, they're obviously high enough on the food chain to eavesdrop on the big decisions.

Still not his problem. Although God help them all if Owen Shaw ever sets his sights on world domination.

"Back to London then," Hattie is saying.

"No," Another voice answers, and Owen stalks in a moment later, making a beeline for the coffee machine. He pours himself a cup, dumps a heart attack's worth of sugar into it - Luke had wondered what it was for when Deckard set it out earlier since the eldest Shaw takes his coffee black and Hattie is drinking tea - and then slugs down half of it before finally turning to them.

"I have good news and bad news," He announces, like the dramatic bastard he is. He catches Hattie's eye and offers a brief distracted smile. "The machine is repaired. I only need another hour or so to finish scanning the software settings, just in case, and the extraction process itself takes thirty minutes to complete. You'll be fine, Hattie."

Hattie breathes out a sigh of relief, eyes bright, but the low-key anxiety that had been dogging her since Luke had met her had already been gone when she'd first entered the kitchen.

"Assuming that's the good news," Deckard cuts in, glancing over at his brother and nudging the covered plate of breakfast at him. "What's the bad news?"

Owen smiles again, and this time it's the cold unfeeling one that Luke is much more familiar with.

"The bad news," Owen says. "Is that there happens to be a tracking function hidden in the software, and it activated as soon as I turned on the device twenty minutes ago." Luke straightens in his seat. Deckard and Hattie both narrow their eyes. Owen's gaze slides to the curtained windows of the kitchen. "With their aircrafts, it will take Eteon approximately two hours to reach this place. Optimistically speaking. Probably less. We _could_ attempt to leave now and fly to London, I can finish the scans onboard, but we risk being intercepted in the air, and that's not a good idea with the virus still in Hattie, especially since my plane isn't outfitted for aerial warfare at the moment, and the cloaking device won't hide the machine, I've checked."

"Can you hack it?" Hattie jumps in. "If we override it, even if they already have this location, we can leave before they get here and they won't be able to follow."

Owen is already shaking his head. "I'm not good enough to override Eteon tech." He shares a look with Deckard. "Deck might be able to, but at this point, it would just be a waste of time."

"We can make a stand here then," Luke says, pushing to his feet and ignoring the way Deckard's arm immediately shifts so that it puts his hand a lot closer to one of his firearms than before. "There's enough firepower in this safehouse to level a city, we'll be able to see them coming, and it's got decent cover. If they're already on their way, we should start preparing-"

"Hold your horses, Captain America," Deckard interrupts before arching an eyebrow at his brother instead. "Owen. Plan?"

"We should do both," Owen says, pulling open a drawer and coming back with a map that he walks over and spreads on the table. "Hobbs makes a good point."

Luke does a double-take, but the middle Shaw doesn't even glance at him this time. He's focused and thinking, eyes sharp on the map and mind plotting out whatever plan is in his head and nothing else, and Luke can suddenly see how this man managed to pull together the best of the best for his crew and ran them like a well-oiled machine without ever needing the bonds that connected Toretto's team. This isn't someone who would've let clashing personalities or personal grievances get in the way, not even from himself, not when it counted.

"This is the best place to draw Eteon in," Owen continues brusquely. "It's isolated, and unfamiliar to them. Lore never seems to go anywhere without some form of backup too, and I can't see them breaking that pattern when we have both the virus and a functional extraction device. They'll send as many people as they can afford this time, so if we have a trap waiting for them, we'll have the highest chance of taking out a large number of them all at once." He points at square marked on the map. "We're here." He traces the runway next to the safehouse, then the single road running along the front, and then various spots in the surrounding woods already marked with tiny red x's. "Eteon will most likely surround the safehouse from all sides and storm it together. For them to do that, it would have to be because they know the machine is still inside. So, I suggest we finish extracting the virus here and leave the machine behind when we depart. The window will be small, we won't be able to take the plane, but we should be able to get away without being seen. Then we can either drive to the nearest airport and head to London from there, or we park the cars here-" He points to a spot outside the range of red x's. "-and take out whoever's left after they've hit the safehouse." He finally looks up. "Thoughts?"

Deckard is smiling in that vaguely psychotic way that he usually hides better than his brother. "They'll come in on choppers but Brixton will probably bring that motorcycle of his along. We should stay in the cars, give 'im a runaround through these mountains. You got a map of the trails around here?"

"Yeah," Owen pushes away from the table and goes to retrieve another map.

"You're okay with losing this place though, Owen?" Hattie calls after him. "Like you said, you put a lot of work into it."

Owen shrugs as he returns. "And it's because of that work that this is now the best course of action to take. When letting something go is more beneficial than keeping it, Hattie, no matter the value, you let it go. Otherwise it becomes deadweight, and that's just not efficient in the long run. We stop them here, and they won't go on to be a thorn in our side. Simple."

Hattie frowns but also shrugs. "If you're sure. Are we detonating them all at once?"

"Probably best," Deckard nods, taking the second map from Owen. "Don't wanna give them any warning. We'll need to make sure they're-"

"Wait," Luke finally interjects, and gets three pairs of unblinking eyes turned on him in return. None of them share the same eye colour but they somehow make their stares look identical anyway. "So…" He points to the red x's. "These are explosives?"

Hattie rolls her eyes. Deckard sighs, "Keep up, Twinkle Toes." And Owen nods curtly at him, eyes like diamond but probably the most polite he's ever been to Hobbs as he says, "Not just the surrounding area either. This safehouse is basically sitting on a bomb."

Luke glances down at the floor. Well, he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. Shaws and things that go boom seem to go hand in hand. "So we lure them in and blow them up. Sounds like a plan." He points at the area beyond the marked land. "Can we plant traps here too? Then when whoever survives comes after us, we can lead 'em right into them."

Owen checks his watch, then the map again. "If you can get it done in the next hour, feel free. Deckard should know where the extra explosives are." Deckard nods. "Mark down where you buried them. Don't make it look obvious. Be back by nine-thirty at the latest."

He pauses, looks around, and when nobody else has anything to add, he nods. "I'll be in my lab. Meet back here in an hour."

They split from there. Owen leaves with a roll of his eyes after his brother shoves his breakfast into his hands. In his wake, Deckard opens a shelf to reveal a panel of car keys, Hattie starts digging around for extra maps, and Luke makes his way back to his bedroom with a bag to clear out the weapons in it.

If the safehouse is going up in flames, there's no point wasting all the ammunition inside.

* * *

"I'll ride with Owen later," Hattie announces as they duck into the garage. Multiple vehicles are parked on either side, empty cement floor between them. "I'm not as good behind the wheel. But this'll do for now." She heads over to a Mercedes.

"You're with me, Hobbs," Deckard announces, already moving towards a Jaguar.

"Unless you're volunteering to take shotgun, I'm driving myself, Your Highness," Hobbs retorts, making his way over to a nondescript but sturdy-looking Dodge.

Deckard glances at him from over the roof of his chosen vehicle before snorting softly and busying himself with crouching down and feeling along the undercarriage. "You might wanna remove the explosive first before you open the door then, Fat Boy."

There's a very significant silence, and then the scrape of shoes as Hobbs also stoops over with a disgruntled curse. On the other side of the garage, Hattie has already disabled hers.

"There's paranoid, and then there's this," Hobbs mutters.

"It's not paranoia," Deckard replies as he makes quick work of the explosive device. Well not _entirely_ paranoia anyway. "Owen just thinks it's funny."

"Hilarious," Hobbs deadpans, followed by a telltale crunch because the man's never done a single thing with delicacy in his life. "What happens if he needs to make a quick getaway?"

"Disarm them remotely of course," Hattie answers as she slides into the driver's seat. "Now come on, we have less than an hour to get this done."

Deckard swings into his own car, and ahead of him, Hobbs does the same.

Time to set some traps.

* * *

One hour and thirty-six minutes later, the virus extraction device beeps twice, the needle slides out of Hattie's arm, the straps release, and the three capsules containing the virus are safely encased in their respective vials.

"Just in time," Hobbs says from where he's parked himself beside one of the windows facing the front. "We got company, and I don't think they're here to sightsee."

Deckard grabs the vials, shoves them in a case, and dumps the machine on the coffee table. Across from him, Owen is shrugging on his coat, and Hattie is flexing the blood flow back into her arm.

"Guys, I don't think we'll be able to go out the front without being spotted," Hobbs says, and in the distance, the buzz of multiple rotors reach their ears.

"Then we'll go out the back," Owen replies, grabbing a duffel off the ground before turning for the garage.

"There's a back way outta this place?"

Owen's eyeroll is practically audible. "There's _always_ a back way out, Agent Hobbs."

Deckard catches Hattie's eye, and a smirk passes between them as they hurry after their brother.

The back way turns out to be a literal underground tunnel, opening in the floor of the garage and leading down and under, large enough for a vehicle to fit through.

"I'll lead," Owen says, striding over to the Ford. "Hatts, you're with me."

They roll out, Owen and Hattie in the front, Hobbs after them, Deckard bringing up the rear, and the tunnel closes up behind them just as the first of the Eteon helicopters roar past overhead.

* * *

They park behind a very conveniently thick crop of trees and boulders and watch through binoculars as Brixton grandstands at an empty safehouse while his men form a rapidly tightening circle around the building. One team has branched off to secure the hangar and disable the plane.

Owen, still in the driver's seat and studying a map of the newly planted explosives, only glances up when Hattie - perched on the bonnet - taps on the windshield. She arches a questioning eyebrow.

Owen hums, then folds up the map and reaches into the back instead for the case he'd stowed there earlier. He steps out of the car to join the others but pays them no mind as he sets the case down, flips it open, and begins assembling the sniper rifle inside.

"…Weren't we blowing them up?" Hattie enquires.

"We're still doing that," Owen assures her as he locks the last piece in place. "Right after this."

He shoulders the rifle and steps towards the rocks, only to stop when a hand catches his wrist. He glances over at Deckard, who stares back, hawk-like and searching. Owen tilts a smirk at him. "I told you ten years ago, Deck. If you hadn't killed Lore, I would've. So, shall we see if today is the day I keep my word?"

Deckard hadn't wanted to kill Brixton Lore. Owen knows that too, and he'd never even needed to ask. For all that his brother hadn't hesitated then, and wouldn't hesitate now, Deckard's always had a strange sort of honour about such things - more so back then than now but some old habits are hard to shake - about turning his gun on someone he'd trusted to have his back, even if they'd betrayed him first.

That's fine. He doesn’t have to. Owen has no qualms doing it for him.

Deckard stare at him for a moment longer, then snorts and shakes his head and lets go, a shadow of a smile passing across his lips even as he turns away. "Do what you want." He picks up the open laptop. "On your mark then."

Owen inclines his head and takes his position. "Time it with my shot."

"Normal bullets don't do anything to him," Hobbs speaks up from the side. He's made no move to stop Owen, which is smarter than Owen would've given him credit for even just two minutes ago.

He settles against one shelf of the rocky outcrop and takes aim. "This isn't a normal bullet."

A year ago, he'd taken a knife across the abdomen, one that had torn through three protective layers and a shirt to get to his flesh. Obviously, he'd taken that blade, melted it down, and recast it into a handful of bullets, just in case he ever needs the extra punch.

Lore's head may be thicker than three protective layers and a shirt, but Owen's willing to bet this'll at least make a sizeable dent.

He smiles, breathes, and releases it with the pull of the trigger.

The crack of the shot spins Lore around, just in time for the bullet to find its mark in his forehead. It doesn't go through him, but it does throw him clean off his feet, and that's the last thing Owen sees through the scope before Deckard triggers every explosive within a thousand-foot radius of the safehouse.

The mountainside _detonates_.

"Let's go," Deckard calls out as smoke and flame billow up towards the sky and debris and dirt rain back down in the distance, and all of them scramble for their cars.

* * *

It's a wild, careening chase through the mountain passes, each of them splitting off as two choppers and a dozen or so men who had escaped the explosions give chase.

"You drive, I'll shoot!" Hattie shouts as she slides halfway out the passenger window, gun in hand, just as two motorcycles leap out between two trees, landing on the road behind them. Their drivers certainly don't expect the three bullets Hattie plants in each of them, and they're dead before one vehicle crashes headlong into another tree and the other flies off the edge of the cliff on the other side.

Four more motorcycles roar out of the foliage up ahead, and a spray of bullets come flying their way. Owen swings his car to the right, using the reinforced glass and metal on his side to shield himself and Hattie as his sister hangs on with one hand and takes aim with the other, each soldier picked off with a single bullet each. Owen straightens them back onto the road, speeding up once more as Hattie ducks back inside.

Somewhere to their far right, a series of explosions seems to shake the very mountain itself, followed by a smoking helicopter spinning out of the air, followed by an indistinct but distinctly triumphant bellow. Definitely Hobbs.

"Brixton?" Hattie asks as she switches out her empty clip with a new one.

"I saw him go after Deckard," Owen's lip curls, and then he directs an annoyed glance at his sideview as a helicopter appears in the reflection. "Incoming, six o'clock. Ready?"

Hattie grins, holstering her Glock in exchange for a machine gun before reaching for the open window again. "Ready."

Owen smirks back and takes the next turn with a sharp twist of the wheel and the briefest press of the brakes, rear tires just barely clearing the ledge as he spins them around and tears back up the road, straight towards the oncoming chopper.

Hattie opens fire, easily dropping the two soldiers leaning out of the aircraft before producing a grenade in her free hand and jerking the pin out with her teeth. The chopper begins peeling away but Owen is already swerving under it in the next moment, and with a nimble flip of her wrist, Hattie hurls the explosive straight into the aircraft, now flying low enough that the skids all but skim the top of her head.

She's back in the safety of the car in another second. "Go!"

Owen is already reaching for the NOS, and as the chopper shatters in a burst of metal fragments and fire, they shoot out of the resulting explosion, heat licking at their tail but unscathed and alive in all the ways that matter.

The remains of the chopper spill across the road behind them, and Owen smiles as Hattie throws her head back and laughs beside him, loud and thrilled and unrestrained.

* * *

It ends the way it ended a decade ago - Deckard on one side, Brixton on the other. Except this time, Owen screeches up a few seconds later with a manic-looking Hattie in tow, and Hobbs barrels into the clearing a moment after that, none the worse for wear, for all that both their cars look a bit singed.

As for Brixton… well. There's a noticeable bullet wound only slightly off-centre of his forehead, and it's bled bad enough - and is still bleeding - that it looks like half his face has been ripped off.

Deckard smirks. "My brother's an excellent shot."

Brixton's eyes burn in his skull, and they keep flickering uncontrollably between their normal brown and the cybernetic orange. Like this, he looks half-mad and as unpredictable as any rabid animal. Deckard keeps his gun trained on him as his siblings and Hobbs do the same, carefully spreading out and staying out of arm's reach.

"Ah, little brother Owen," Brixton sneers, his gaze slicing over to the man in question. Owen merely arches an eyebrow. "You know, if you'd stayed in the military for just a little bit longer instead of disappearing into the world, Eteon would've offered you a place with us."

Deckard stills. "What."

It comes out flat and cold, and Brixton turns back to him with a mocking grin.

"What can I say?" He shrugs exaggeratedly. "You Shaws are three of a kind. Cream of the British military crop." He jabs a finger at a supremely unimpressed Hattie. "She's been on our radar for a while now too. That night with the Snowflake might've gone a lot differently if she hadn't run off with the virus. In fact-"

Brixton doesn't get to finish. Deckard empties his entire clip into his face and throat before he can, and that shot to the head must've really messed up his enhancements because he doesn't even try to dodge. The first three bullets skitter off, but the rest draw even more blood, sinking into flesh with merciless intent.

Apparently, even Black Superman can't take that much repeated damage at point-blank range, on top of an already serious injury in the same area.

Brixton staggers back, one step, two, and then he simply crumples where he stands, head lolling as he chokes on his own blood, limbs jerking, body convulsing as he drowns. Deckard paces over and stops beside him, looking down to meet desperate eyes, already glazing over with the promise of death.

He bares his teeth. "Don't fucking threaten my siblings." He pulls the trigger, and one last bullet slams into the head wound Owen had opened up earlier.

Brixton's skull shatters.

Deckard inhales, steps away, and holsters his gun. He makes his way over to Owen and Hattie, who automatically step apart to make room for him in the middle. Hattie curls an arm around him. Owen doesn't, but Deckard feels his fingers wrap around his wrist. He breathes in, breathes out, buries his face in Hattie's shoulder, and just for a minute, he lets himself pretend nothing else in the world exists save for the three of them right here, back together again.

* * *

They have to leave after that. Law enforcement is undoubtedly on the way, and it's just less troublesome all around if they aren't there when Finnish police arrive. It takes several hours and another plane Owen calls in, but eventually, they make it back to London and the CIA, only slightly bedraggled and jetlagged.

Eteon withdraws. For whatever reason, there isn't another peep out of them, and Deckard and Hobbs' arrest warrants vanish overnight. Hattie's frame-up is also sorted after they deliver the Snowflake and Brixton's body, but when MI6 offers her her job back, she turns them down flat.

She agrees to keep a line open though, with them and the CIA, like Deckard, and Hobbs, and that will have to be good enough for them.

They tentatively approach Owen with the same offer, since he's around, for once, and doesn't seem about to shoot anybody.

Owen laughs them out the door.

"It could be a handy connection to have though," Hattie remarks, not particularly judgemental, just curious.

"Please," Owen scoffs. "If I want to know what's going on in MI6, I have half a dozen people who can tell me at any given time."

"I'm not hearing this," Hobbs mutters from where he's filling out paperwork. He glares at Deckard, who has his legs kicked up and is enjoying a scone. "You're supposed to be filling this bullshit out too, Princess."

Deckard all but radiates smugness. "First stipulation I made when MI6 asked me to work for them again - no bloody paperwork. You're on your own, Twinkle Toes."

Hobbs looks like he would love nothing more than to pick up the desk between them and throw it at Deckard. Deckard rolls his eyes, finishes off his scone, and then stands. "Come on, Hatts, we have to go visit Mum. You too, Owen. I promised her we'd go together as soon as we made up with Hattie."

Hattie perks up. "It… will be nice to see Mum again."

Owen wrinkles his nose. "I hate prisons."

Hobbs' gaze flits briefly to him and then back to his paperwork. Deckard and Hattie exchange a loaded glance. Owen catches it all and rolls his eyes at them. "It's terrible for my complexion so I'm not going in. You're gonna need a getaway driver anyway. I'll wait outside."

Deckard snorts, relaxing again and pointing out, "She might wanna stay."

"I'm sure we can convince her otherwise," Hattie grins. "Cake?"

"Nail file," Deckard agrees.

Owen rises to his feet as well. "Let's be off then."

Hattie hops up too and waves goodbye at Hobbs before breezing out of the office. If he ever tries anything against either of her brothers, she'll put him down as hard as she'd dearly like to put down Dominic Toretto, but for now, she can separate him from Toretto's crew in her mind, if only because she can understand that he was only doing his job, and when it came down to it, he'd had nothing to do with slamming Owen's head against the steering wheel and trapping him on the plane.

So for now, she can let it go, and history aside, Hobbs isn't so bad to hang around.

Deckard nods curtly at Hobbs, who returns it with a lift of his eyebrows and half an amused smile. He grimaces and strides for the door, pausing only because Owen is still behind him, and it'll be a cold day in hell before Deckard walks out of a room with his brother and one of Toretto's people still in it. His hand still itches for the weight of a firearm when he lays eyes on the man, but he'd reluctantly admit that Hobbs can at least handle himself against arseholes like Eteon, and better him for an ally than amateurs or Toretto.

He's still going to keep an eye on Hobbs. The fact that he can handle himself makes him dangerous, and if he ever goes after Owen again, Deckard will be first in line to put a bullet between his eyes.

Owen says nothing. He slips his hands in his pockets and stares at Hobbs, who stares back, and the standoff lasts only a few seconds past uncomfortable before Owen turns and walks away, past Deckard who's waiting by the door, falling into step beside Hattie who's right outside. Deckard follows, a steady reassuring presence at their backs, and Owen shoves all thoughts of Hobbs and Toretto and scars and vengeance to the back of his mind in favour of the present as they step out into the morning sunlight, together.

It's early still, another day breaking over the horizon, another dawn they've lived to see.

And for the first time in over ten years, it's one they're seeing together.


End file.
